National Security and Russia

Debate between Bob Seely and Edward Leigh

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Since marrying my half-Russian wife 34 years ago in the Russian orthodox cathedral in Gunnersbury, I have made it my business to try to understand Russian culture and Russian people. They certainly respect strength and people standing up to them.

It is a bit of a mystery why this murder was carried out in the way that it was. I think that it was carried out as it was to make it obvious that Russia had carried it out. There has been speculation that it was designed around the Russian election; I think that it was designed to make it absolutely clear that traitors will not be tolerated.

Let me talk a bit about the Russian mindset. When we think of people like Philby and Maclean, we look at them with amused contempt. The Russian views traitors with absolute hatred, because they have betrayed the motherland. I pay tribute to the Russian people, Russian culture and Russian literature. In Russia, there is a deep sense of victimhood, which arises from the second world war and its losses in that war. Our losses pale into insignificance compared with the losses suffered by the Russian people. That sense of victimhood is still there.

When I was last a delegate to the Council of Europe, I attended the previous Russian elections. There was no doubt that those elections were deeply flawed—Russian elections are deeply flawed—but also no doubt about the popularity of Mr Putin. Had he allowed a fair election, he almost certainly would have been elected, because the ordinary Russian felt that he was restoring some sort of pride to Russia.

There is a deep sense of despair and victimhood about how we treated Russia during the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I do not for a moment condone, defend or accept the annexation of Crimea, but the ordinary Russian remembers that there was an independence referendum in 1992 in which Ukraine voted more than 90% for independence and that there was an independence referendum in Crimea in which more than 90% voted for independence from Ukraine. In their view, Ukraine has always been part of Russia and is largely Russian, although they overlook the suffering of the Tatar people. All those facts are very strong in the Russian psyche, as is the attempt to detach Ukraine—which means borderland in Russian—from mother Russia.

[Mr Seely]

My hon. Friend makes a series of important points and I am glad that he is making them. There are counter-arguments to them that I shall not go over now, but does he believe that one problem is that the Russians simply cannot imagine an independent Ukrainian identity that is separate from Russia? That is one of the driving factors behind the issue.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, they cannot imagine that because Kiev is the source of the Rus’ people and the thousand-year-old history of the Russian Orthodox Church, to which Kiev is as much an integral part as Canterbury is to the Anglican communion. They cannot understand Ukraine as an independent entity.

None of this is to condone or in any way defend Russia. What are we going to do about this situation? First, as I said to the Prime Minister, we need to create a coalition of peace through security. Russia would not have been too concerned about the expulsion of 23 diplomats —that is tit for tat—but it would have been very concerned about the fact that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have made alliances throughout Europe, that we have been listened to and that these expulsions have been going on today. Russia will be extremely concerned about that.

Secondly, we should not seek to copy Russia’s methods or attack it in the way that it attacks. We should be careful. I know that some Members want to close down RT. I do not defend RT in any shape or form, but we should leave it to Ofcom. We should leave it to due process, not political interference from this place. We should also be careful about what we do in respect of the City of London. It has a reputation throughout the world for fair dealing. We act on evidence. If there is evidence of criminality and dirty money, we must act on it, but we cannot attack Russians who invest in our country and in the City of London simply because they are Russian. That would be a mistake.

What do we do? We make alliances, which we have done, and we expel the diplomats. The point I have been making again and again, with the Chair of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who went way back and quoted Palmerston, is that Russians historically respect strength. We currently have just 800 men in the Baltic states. We have 150 in Poland. It is simply not enough. Surely, history proves to us that in dealing with Russia, words are not enough. Russians want to see action on the ground.

Why did we defeat the USSR in the cold war? It was not with words, but with solid determination to spend what needed to be spent on defence. We have heard the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), and we know the stresses on the defence budget. The Foreign Secretary should echo the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who said in the estimates debate not three weeks ago that spending 2% on defence was not enough. We should make a solid and real commitment to the Baltic states. That is what will concern Mr Putin: the determination to put troops on the ground. I know about all the pressures on the Government that are arising from health and many other things, but unless we are prepared to make that commitment—to do what Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan were prepared to do to bring down the Soviet Union—we will never counter the Russian threat.

Russia is not a natural enemy of our country. It is sometimes difficult to say that in this Chamber. We have had speech after speech condemning Russia. We are two powers at either end of Europe. From the days of Queen Elizabeth I, we have traded together. Russia is not and should not be an existential threat to this country. There has been a lot of talk about cyber-warfare. I have no doubt that Russia is attempting and engaging in cyber-warfare, but I do not believe that it could seriously affect our democracy. We should be proud of our democracy and determined that it is resilient. We must not indulge in Russophobia. We must be proportionate and determined, and we must be prepared to spend on defence what we need to spend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course, I would not want for a moment to disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He knows what is going on and I echo what he says: the Russians are indulging in some attempt to destabilise our values. I make no defence of what they are doing; I just think that we are a sufficiently robust economy and democracy that we can weather it and that they will not change things fundamentally in our country. We should be aware of it, but we should have confidence in our self-reliance.

It is terribly important that we are serious about this subject. There is absolutely no point in our having this debate and attacking President Putin, only for all our attacks to completely wash off the Russian people, who do not want to be an extension of western Europe in their values, economy or anything else. What will have an effect on them? Is it words in this Chamber, or actions on the ground? Are actions on the ground enough? There may be no absolute real and present danger to our country, but there is to the Baltic states, not least because of their very sizable Russian minority.

[Mr Seely]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I must finish now.

There is a very sizable minority of people in those states who are not that well treated. Many Russians believe fervently in their soul that those minorities are not well treated and that President Putin has the right to interfere. We have NATO. The Baltic states are not Ukraine. We must not allow what happened in 1940 to happen to the Baltic states. Therefore, words are not enough. We must will the means. We must spend more on defence and put the troops into the Baltic states.